


Do Cyborgs Scream in Their Synthetic Sleep?

by Numina



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Depression, Dream Sequence, Flashback, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers Swears, discussion of chronic illness, mention of eugenics, period ablist slur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 04:45:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16803892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Numina/pseuds/Numina
Summary: What does James Buchanan Barnes, aka The Winter Soldier, dream about when he's in storage?





	1. Chapter 26

**Author's Note:**

> These are standalone dreams and flashback chapters from "Collect Your Feelings".

“How did you eat that many hot dogs?” Bucky exclaimed as they headed up the Rockaway boardwalk, collars turned up against the wind. Winter had harassed the Long Island shoreline well into May, creeping in off the water whenever the sun’s back was turned. They needed to find a way home before it got too late.

Steve shrugged amiably, “I was hungry. Anyway I didn’t eat them all myself.”

Bucky shook his head, “Aw Steve, not another stray dog.”

Steve gave a loaded scoff, “No! Course not.”

Bucky glanced at him for the punchline.

He shrugged, “It was a stray cat.”

Bucky laughed and stuck his hands into his pockets, glad his mom had pressed his warm coat on him at the door, but wishing he'd brought a hat, too. He’d been feeling that wishful, coltish urge to swap into short sleeves and light jackets despite the chill, as if a change of uniform might trick the cold into finally surrendering in time for summer.

Steve’s mom hadn’t been feeling well the week before, and had been working a lot to make up for it. He’d come out in just his tan windbreaker. Bucky wanted more than anything to trade him his coat, keep his chest warm, but couldn’t figure a way to do it that wouldn’t just get him a dirty look. He’d settled for trying to get them off the boardwalk before full dark.

He shook his head at Steve, “You’re such a sucker for big green eyes.”

“You’re one to talk. I spent twenty cents, you blew three bucks. I thought you’d sworn off redheads.”

“Yeah, but you haven’t.” Bucky bumped him with his elbow.

Steve nodded soberly, “Now that you mention it, it _was_ a ginger cat...”

Bucky guffawed, “Exactly! I was talking you up the whole time, dummy. Girls like her and her friend love guys like you.”

Steve made a face, “Stop it.”

“I’m serious! They’re maturing faster than us. Girls like that, they're fed up with guys like me.”

Steve nodded pensively, “You are objectively kinda terrible.”

“Right! But you, you played it perfect! You said hi, showed her that boyish smile, got through introducing yourself without throwing up on her shoes, conquered a roller coaster, and then excused yourself to go contemplate the ocean and create a little art. You showed yourself to be a man of substance, a budding college swell with a poetic soul.”

“And corrective shoes.”

“Bah. I’m telling you man, come September, it’s all over for mooks like me. You’re exactly what a real woman is gonna want.”

Steve glanced at him and smiled that indulgent, fleeting smile that had become rarer every year, the one that chose Bucky’s version over what he actually believed. That heavy smile had made Steve seem older when they were kids, but seemed younger and younger the older they got. Eventually it would stop being what it really was and become a nostalgic monument to itself, a muscle memory toast to that fleeting age of choosable innocence.

Back then it still signaled the surrender of Steve’s sharp-eyed skepticism. His resistance beyond that was merely a matter of form, “With a line like that, pretty sure you’re the poetic soul.”

Bucky shrugged expansively, exaggerating his brooklynite, “Eh, I’m Scots-Irish. Whaddaya gunna do?” he dropped the patter and glanced over, “I’m really glad you came out today.”

Steve took a last glance at the water as they walked, “Yeah, me too. It’s been a good day. I feel good. The winter’s been too long.”

“Glad your mom’s feeling better.”

Steve nodded the wrong kind of nod.

“What is it?”

Steve glanced at him, that worried squint that meant _just between you and me?_

Bucky flicked a _yeah, of course, duh_ eyebrow.

Steve grimaced and glanced down, “I don’t think she was sick. When she couldn’t go to work last week. I think maybe she was just sad.”

“Really?” he couldn’t picture it. Sarah Rogers didn’t exactly smile very often, but she never really seemed to get sad either. Her benevolence was solemn and unwavering, like a Catholic saint or the statue of Liberty. “Sad about what?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “probably me.”

“Ah come on, don’t do that. Did she say that?”

“She didn’t say anything. That’s the thing. I mean, It happens sometimes, that she’ll get sad. She just doesn’t like for folks to see. But she didn’t take out her wedding album or play her records like she does when she misses dad. She didn’t want me to read to her or set up the card table to help wait out the blues. She just smoked in bed, read the paper, and slept. Sometimes when I got home I could hear her crying.”

“Jeez. But she’s better now?”

Steve shrugged, “She’s back at work. She does that, though. She’s no good at sitting around.”

Bucky grinned, “Yeah I remember, last year, when you stayed with us because she had the bronchitis, and my mom took over some soup.”

Steve nodded, picking up the story, the story picking up the corners of his mouth, “And she came home mad that she’d found her cleaning the bathroom. In her defense, she was already in there with the hot shower on for her lungs.”

Bucky laughed, “Yeah, after she’d hauled all the towels and sheets into the kitchen to boil, and was wiping down the fixtures and walls with rubbing alcohol or bleach.”

Steve grinned, “She doesn’t like to be bullied,” he shrugged again, “Anyway yeah, she’s out of bed now. So that’s good.”

They got to the end of the boardwalk and turned down the street, a chill ocean wind shouldering past them from behind.

Bucky glanced doubtfully at Steve, “It’s getting pretty dark, maybe we should try to catch a ride or something.”

Steve shook his head, “Nah, I feel fine. The air was really clean today, and the walking feels good.”

“Yeah but all the way back to Brooklyn? It’ll be midnight before we get in.”

“It’s fine.”

His stomach turned uneasily, “You know what? Just go get on the train. I’ll find something. It was my stupid mistake. No reason for you to have to hoof it.”

Steve sighed, “I don't care whose fault it is. I’m not gonna leave you out here like an asshole.”

“Then I’ll hop a turnstile.”

Steve rolled his eyes but his weary tone took up an abrasive edge, “You’re not gonna hop a turnstile. I’m fine.”

“Right now you are but-”

“Goddammit Buck, I’m fine!” that deep voice always seemed like a magic trick from his narrow chest, “I don’t need everyone worrying themselves to death about me all the time!”

Bucky shook his head, mystified, “Are you serious? I admire your confidence but you know as well as I do that you can’t get sick right now, Steve. You blew through all your absences before Christmas, remember? Now we’re this close to graduating and you’re gonna risk having to repeat? For what?”

“It’s just walking! I’m not gonna get sick!”

“It’s fifteen miles! At least! Across the bay! Did you even bring your asthma cigarettes? Or your brace? Not that they’d help if your heart gives out or you burst a vessel in your brain.”

“Shut up.”

“What am I supposed to do if you keel over with an aneurysm in Bushwick in the middle of the night?”

Steve's growl bloomed into a yell, “Maybe you’re supposed to just _leave me there!_ ”

Bucky stopped short, stunned silent. Steve kept walking.

“Steve. Steve!” He wished he could summon up the kind of commanding tone Steve could, but he had to use his size instead, dodging into his path and jabbing a finger at his chest, “Never,” he barked, “not ever. You hear me? And never say that again. Or even think it.”

Steve shook his head, “Get outta my way, Buck.”

“No!”

Steve’s face screwed up like he was about to scream, but it came out hushed and bitter, “See, that’s the trouble. I can’t get you out of my way. Did you ever think that maybe the reason I’ve never gotten better is because nobody will let me try? Teddy Roosevelt had asthma and-”

“Here we go again. I knew it was a mistake giving you that biog-”

“And he beat it!” Steve snapped, “He grew out of it! Because he didn’t just sit around all the time afraid of what might happen!”

Bucky scowled and nodded at the wall beside them, thinking he’d probably have better luck talking sense to the bricks if Steve was gonna be in That Mood, “Yeah, well you gotta actually grow before you can grow out of anything.”

The hit probably wouldn’t have knocked him down if his head hadn’t already been turned halfway over his shoulder, or if it hadn't been a complete surprise. But next thing he knew his ass and elbows were on the pavement with his ears ringing, and Steve was standing over him with his fists balled up and a look on his face like he couldn’t believe it either.

One hand opened and reached out sheepishly to help him up.

Bucky took it, wary of his own weight, surprised when Steve was able to haul him up, knees bent and leaning back for all he was worth. He brushed himself off and leaned against the wall. He wasn’t sure what he could do if Steve started walking away again, and it made his heart hurt.

“You’re such a jerk,” Steve muttered.

“Yeah,” he nodded, “I’m sorry, man. I-” he sighed, “yeah.”

Steve nodded slowly, shoulders relaxing, “Sorry I hit you.”

He prodded his jaw and grinned in spite of himself, “If you call that a hit you’re coming to the gym, first thing after school Monday. No more arguments. Cuz you ever hit me again you better knock my ass out. Punk.”

Steve smiled. A real one. No suspension of disbelief required.

“So let’s find a ride, unless...” he tried not to say it, tried not to plead, but it had filled up his chest and felt like if he didn’t let it out he'd suffocate on it, “unless you really do have that death wish.”

Steve grimaced and rolled his head back on his shoulders, frustrated, “It’s not that, Buck. I just-”

“Will you get it on already!” a voice yelled from an alley down the street, “I got to get all the way to East Village and back before close!”

Steve and Bucky exchanged a curious look before heading towards the noise.

The source was a graying woman with a melodious russian accent, haranguing a couple of kids who were struggling to load a large office desk and chair out of the back of a small restaurant and into the back of a tiny refrigerated truck.

Steve called out, “Hey there, sounds like you could use a hand. Mind if we cut in?”

The lady looked them over shrewdly but nodded, “Thank you, sweet boys. My back is no good and my grand-nieces-” she gestured and shook her head as if their deficiencies were unspeakably worse.

Steve squared his shoulders gallantly, “No problem at all ma’am. Buck, you ok to get the other end?”

Bucky gave him a warning look but they got the furniture up over the truck’s edge and securely into the back without Steve turning blue or collapsing. The lady chatted with them proudly, “I give this to my son in law, for his new butcher store project in Manhattan. He is trading me two sides of beef. So I take the truck. Just in case.”

“If you’re heading that way, could you maybe drop us in Brooklyn Heights?” When she gave him a suspicious look he added hastily, “We could ride in back. Make sure nothing slides around.”

As she shut them into the dark box, she admonished, “No sitting in chair, goldilocks.”

Bucky sighed as he settled with his back against the desk, “You could have just asked her for a spare nickel for the train.”

“I’m not gonna ask for cash from an old woman who’s trading furniture for a cow carcass. I think that’s how you end up abducted by fairies.”

Even without the cooler running, it was wickedly cold inside the truck. Bucky figured it was still a trade-up. At least Steve could rest, and it was out of the wind. They sat side by side in the dark as the truck bumped its way out of the alley and into traffic.

“I don’t have a death wish,” Steve offered quietly.

Bucky snorted softly, “Sure.”

“No I mean it. I promise, ok? I would never do that.” He tested a bantering tone, “I know how helpless you are without me.”

Bucky’s smile didn’t quite reach his voice, “Then why you gotta keep scaring me like that.”

“Cuz I wanna live, Buck.”

He leaned his head back and tapped it against the heavy wood a few times with a satisfyingly solid thunk, “I swear you’re gonna drive me to the nut house.”

“I’m serious, Buck. I know I went too far, I’m just so tired of being so-" he trailed off into derisive muttering until "-and I know it’s no picnic for you, either.”

“What are you talking about.”

“When my mom couldn’t get outta bed. It reminded me how hard it must be to be my friend.”

Bucky groaned, “Look, I said I was sorry, I know I went too far, you don’t have to rub it in.”

“No, I mean it. Being sick all the time. It hurts. It’s boring. The exhaustion and the pain and the...the tedium." He shook his head angrily, "It rules what I eat and whether I sleep and how much I cost to exist and what,” he held an arm out into the dark and dropped it again, “what time of the evening we have to head home because a cool spring breeze could knock me out for a week. I don’t wanna die, but I don’t want this to be my life, either.”

He shook his head again, his tone softer, steadier, “But it’s my life, and I can take it. I know how bad it is and how bad it isn’t. And I know you don’t. And I know…” he coughed, “Once in a while I realize what that’s like.”

“What what’s like?”

“Being on the outside, and looking in at someone else in pain. Of all the stuff that being sick gets to control about my life,” he coughed again, clearing his throat to cover a sniffle, “the thing I hate the most is how strong a person has to be just to be my friend.”

“Oh my god would you please stop talking.”

“But Buck, listen-”

“No I mean, seriously, stop talking,” he unzipped his coat and began shucking out of the sleeves, “It’s too fucking cold and dry in here. You’re starting to cough, and if we don’t keep your airway warm-”

Steve’s sigh was broken up by another little cough, “I’m aware of how it works, Buck.”

Bucky pressed on, knowing he was being a pedantic ass, needing to say the words he knew like talismans against evil, “-you’re going to start wheezing, so stop talking and start doing your breathing.”

"Yes, mom." Steve pulled his windbreaker off and submitted to being wrapped in Bucky’s oversized coat. They scooted in close and draped the windbreaker over both their heads like a tent to trap warmth. He took a deep breath in through his nose slowly, and blew it out through tightly pursed lips.

“It feels like the truck is making good time,” Steve offered as they got settled together, “bet we’re across the causeway already. Be home in no time.”

Bucky nodded resolutely, tucking his neck and arms as close to his body as he could and digging his chin into the shoulder of his own coat. He pressed as much of his front to Steve’s side as physics allowed, the chill already slipping through the knit of his sweater and gnawing at his shirt, “No time at all.”

Steve nodded resolutely and deployed the commanding tone that had been the puberty fairy’s only real gift to him, “This was a terrible idea.”

Bucky agreed crisply, “One of your worst.”

“No argument here.”

They were quiet for a while, trying not to move as the truck shook and swayed, to keep the windbreaker tent from losing heat. They felt the truck shudder to a stop, wait about twenty seconds, then grind into gear and lurch onwards.

“See?” Steve coaxed on the end of another long exhale, “Traffic light. We’re probably in Queens.”

“As if we needed any more evidence that this was a terrible idea.”

Steve scoffed and they were quiet again, adjusting into each other a little bit tighter. Bucky’s forehead tipped to press against Steve’s temple.

“Steve, listen. What you said…”

“Buck, it’s ok.”

“No, listen. It’s not about me. Being your friend, I mean. It’s got nothing to do with me being strong enough, because when it comes to you getting hurt, I’m not. I know I’m not. I don’t know where you’re getting all this crazy guilty bullshit from, but if it was down to whether or not I’m strong enough to handle the shit the world puts you through, it all woulda fallen apart by now.”

“Buck-”

“No listen. Because I don’t handle it like you seem to think. I almost never have to handle it at all. Because all I see is my best friend, and all I think about is whatever we’re talking about. If there’s a way we’re friends because of me, then it must just be because I’ve got a lot of great stuff going for me that I don’t deserve. I’m not your friend because I’m strong enough to worry about you all the time, I’m your friend because, knowing you, there’s no other way I could ever be. It’s not about me.” he chuckled, pulling his arms a little tighter around himself against the cold, “God help us all if it ever is.”

Steve pulled one hand out of the crook of its opposite elbow and found Bucky’s, pulling it into the end of the warm sleeve, his voice thick, “Thanks, Buck.”

“Where’s all this coming from, anyway?”

Steve took a while to answer.

“I know I’m the reason my mom is sad,” he offered glumly, “Otherwise she’d talk to me about it. I mean, usually she does, if just so I won't worry. And she was only ever sad about the past before. That was something she could talk about. Now I think she’s scared of the future. For me. That’s the difference.”

Bucky shrugged, “She shouldn’t be worried. You’re doing fine. Helping old ladies in alleyways and punching ne'er-do-wells on the sidewalk. You can be the next pulp hero detective.” He suddenly felt a little dizzy, an image of stars flashing behind his eyes.

Steve’s tone conceded nothing, “Apparently someone’s been putting up flyers in the neighborhood around the hospital. Propaganda. About how some people are born to be a burden. Talking about cripples and immigrants and the mentally ill. I found a bunch she’d torn down when I had to go into her bag to write the rent check.”

Bucky had a brief vision of holding a crumpled flyer in his hands, neat print framing calm statements calling on reasonable people to acknowledge _the problem_. Had that happened? No, that hadn't happened yet. That was outside the recruiter's office.

“That’s just talk, Steve,” Bucky tried to sound reassuring, but something was plucking at the back of his mind, discordant with what he heard himself saying, “Some smug small-minded busybodies are always gonna talk like that. And oh well. It’s a free country. That’s what makes us better than them.” Shut up Barnes, a voice whispered in his head, you know better now, don’t you? You should be warning him.

“My mom has coworkers who sat on eugenics boards in our lifetimes, Buck. Doctors. Their talk decided if people from one group or another, one diagnosis or another, were justified in existing, whether the state had the right to sterilize them. They cataloged families in terms of genetic worth and wished they could do more to curate them. Lately these same enlightened scholars have been talking about Germany’s enlightened new chancellor in envious terms.”

“Yeah, but that’s Germany. There's this little thing called the Atlantic Ocean.” Shut up Barnes, you stupid fuck. Don’t you remember what’s about to happen?

“No, Buck. Cold Spring Harbor’s maybe twenty miles from here. That’s stuff that started _here._ It happened _here._ Real people were put under the knife in the name of cleansing the population, and it only stopped because better people forced to. It’s still happening in other states. And if it starts again...” he coughed, “...It could be the…”

“Steve, you need to be doing your breathing.” This wasn’t how it had happened. Had it even been cold that day?

Steve slipped his small, cold hand across Bucky’s forehead, gasping for air, “...the end…” his fingers stretched strangely, drizzling through his hairline, “...the end…” the truck was shaking. This wasn’t how it happened.

“...end of the line…”

The sides of the truck burst off and everything became bright and blurry.


	2. Chapter 35

After the twenty-hour Greyhound from Milwaukee to Manhattan, Bucky decided to skip the train, and changed into his civvies to hoof it the rest of the way home.

It was a nice day for February, so he went a little out of his way to walk by the river, to hear the hoots of the big barges and get sappy about the Brooklyn skyline. It took him well over an hour’s stroll to get to the bridge, but it was good to be wearing his own shoes again.

It felt like it had been years.

The sky over the bridge’s pedestrian promenade seemed enormous; bright and cloudless and just beginning to go pink at the edges as the sun sank west towards the tips of Manhattan. The cars and trolleys rumbled companionably by beneath the boards. The courteously indifferent tourists, couples, and pushcarts flowed by him like he belonged. The peaked arches of the Manhattan-side tower loomed open to him in welcome, like a cathedral to modern industry and good old american hubris. All of it, suspended over the East River by shining metal wires, grounded him better than all the half-frozen mud camp McCoy had caked onto him since new years.

He had just reached the tower on the Brooklyn side; thinking how lucious the mild breeze was, how Steve would be sorry to have missed it, and how he was starting to get hungry; when he spotted a figure leaning both elbows on the overlook fence, one foot perched on the lower rail.

The slight young man gazed downriver towards the bay, relaxed and expressively angular in the rich late-afternoon light. With a spindly atropine cigarette in one hand and a sketch pad under one arm, he looked for all the world like a Rockwell painting. Bucky stifled the impulse to laugh and call out once he was sure it wasn’t just a homesick hallucination.

Instead, he hitched up his duffle on his shoulder and strolled over to lean on the rail beside Steve.

“Hey pal. How ‘bout them Dodgers?”

Steve glanced at his shoes and smiled, then looked back out over the water, “They’re lookin’ ok. Everyone’s all excited about Johnny Rizzo. Who knows, maybe they’ll take the pennant again this year.”

“Rizzo’s a bum.”

“Yeah, but he can hit.” Steve stubbed out his mostly-unsmoked cigarette on the sole of his shoe and put it in the pocket of his threadbare windbreaker.

“Doctor Melson still prescribing you those things?”

Steve nodded, indifferent, “He’s moving to Sarasota in the spring. The new doc he’s pawning me off on says I should try an infusion of adrenaline and morphine instead.” He sighed philosophically down river, “I don’t know if I’m ready for that.” He flicked a glance over to Bucky, “So how was it?”

Bucky nodded, “It was ok. Cold.”

“They make you a Colonel yet?”

“Nah. Buck Sergeant. High as you can get, in basic.”

Steve cracked a wider smile, “Oh is that all. You’re losing your touch, Barnes.”

“Yeah, I know. Lucky for me they really like Eagle Scouts in the army.”

Steve made a rueful sound and looked down again, “Well maybe there’s some hope for me yet.”

Bucky made a note to kick himself later and changed the subject, “So what are you doing out here?”

“I could ask you the same. No one’s expecting you back until tomorrow.”

“I hopped a bus. Figured I’d surprise ‘em. But seriously,” he nudged an elbow into Steve’s arm, “how did you know I’d be here?”

Steve grinned, “I didn’t. First nice weather we’ve had, is all. Figured I’d come out and see my girl,” he nodded towards the tiny figure in the distance that stood with her torch raised to welcome the huddled masses to America.

Bucky nodded, “She’s cute. She got a friend?”

Steve just smiled at the horizon, the picture of contentment, as the sky turned from rose-tipped blue to a muddle of orange and mauve. The foot and vehicle traffic noise swaddled their shared serendipitous silence, suspended mid-air. Both skylines and a few of the bolder stars flickered alight as the day faded to dusk.

Finally Bucky’s stomach squealed. It had started giving attitude since he’d gotten ten pounds leaner despite the army’s three heavy meals per day. He nudged Steve, “You hungry? I haven’t eaten since Toledo. Wanna get something?”

Steve nodded, “We could hit the automat by the Navy Yard. They’re twenty-four hours now.”

Bucky shrugged one shoulder indecisively, “I dunno, I’d kinda like to celebrate a little.”

“They have pie.”

Bucky had a thought and groaned with longing, “Oh, you know what I’ve been dying for? The meatballs at Ferdinandos. I feel like I can smell ‘em from here.”

Steve looked at him like he’d started speaking Greek, “You can’t be serious.”

“What? My treat. Come on.”

Steve laughed, incredulous, “We’re not getting in at Ferdinando’s. Besides you were only gone six weeks.”

“So?”

“Three years you’ve been pacing Brooklyn like a caged tiger. After that, you weren’t gone long enough to miss anything.”

Bucky shook his head, “Well, turns out I missed everything, smart guy. Especially real italian food.”

Steve turned back to the water, “Well too bad for you. We’re not getting in anywhere tonight.”

Bucky gaped in affront, “Why not? We’re dressed ok.” He looked down at his slacks and shoes, like maybe he’d been walking around in dungarees all day and hadn’t realized.

Steve regarded him with slow-dawning wonder, “Oh my god. You...you really don’t know. What did they do to you out there?”

Bucky scowled, nonplussed, “I’ve been half-asleep in a rolling lunchbox all day. What is it?”

Steve glanced around in amused disbelief, “Holy cow. Who are you and what have you done with my pal Bucky?”

Bucky raised his eyebrows and shrugged expansively, signaling for Steve to just let him have it, “Did the restaurant burn down? Did the pasta-makers’ union go on strike or something? What?”

“Buck,” Steve took him by the shoulders and looked him in the eyes with grave pity, “It’s the fourteenth of February. It’s Valentine’s. And a Saturday. And the first night in weeks it hasn’t been freezing cold or pouring down rain.” He didn’t mention that the whole country was still reeling from the December attack on Pearl Harbor and needed a night out, or how half the young men in New York, and a whole lot of women even, were either just getting home from basic, preparing to get on that train, or wondering when they were going to be shipped out. He didn’t need to.

He just shrugged and said, “Everyplace that might impress a girl is going to be mobbed.”

Bucky opened his mouth, closed it, and turned to lean his lower back on the fence to look towards the Navy Yard. “They got pie, you say?”

“Pretty good pie, yeah.”

“Then let’s celebrate.” He pushed off the rail.

Steve fell into step beside him. “Celebrate? The day _Sergeant_ James Barnes forgot Valentine’s? This is a national disaster. I can already see tomorrow’s headline.”

“Stop it.”

“Extra! Extra! Streets strewn with grieving damsels! Bonfires of dancing shoes halt all traffic on eastern seaboard!”

“Why did I miss you?”

Steve described typeface spanning the horizon with his raised hands, “Spring cancelled!”

Bucky scoffed and adjusted his duffle, “All is not lost. I could get the uniform on after we eat, drag you out to the dance hall with me to help console them.”

“Nah. Then the headline would read ‘Two young men killed in stampede of feminine lust.’”

Bucky laughed, “You know it.”

Steve poked him with an elbow, “I missed you too, pal.”

Bucky hooked an arm around Steve’s shoulders and jostled him into a sidelong hug as they strolled, “Damn right you did.”

Even the automat had been unusually busy, mostly with groups of young men just finishing their shifts and grabbing a bite before going out, along with a few similar groups of young women. The enthusiasm was boisterous, almost manic.

Huddled over a second piece of pie beneath the crowd noise, Steve admitted, “I tried again.”

Bucky rolled his coffee cup between his hands and traded a glance across the aisle with a little doe-eyed brunette, “Tried what again? Art school?”

Steve just looked at him levelly until Bucky noticed.

Bucky put his cup down and leaned in, “Are you serious? Actually, forget serious, are you crazy?”

Steve shrugged.

“What happened?”

“Same as last time.”

Bucky tried not to look too relieved, to spare Steves feelings, and didn’t really succeed. “Jesus, Steve. I know you’re worked up, we all are, but you’ll do a lot more for the war if you’re not sitting in jail.”

“Yeah, I really bet my paper route has Hirohito shaking in his shoes.”

Bucky felt himself getting mad, “Don’t do that.”

Steve sighed and looked away.

Bucky shook his head in disgust, “This is what happens when I get out of your way, huh? Six weeks and you turn into a criminal. Steve, look at me.”

Steve didn’t. “Maybe it’s not about you for once.”

“Then what is it about? You never even jumped a turnstile in your life, now you’re committing federal felonies?”

“If it’s what I gotta do.”

“Well it’s not!” Bucky glanced around and lowered his voice again, “It’s not. Look, from what I’ve seen in basic, the army knows what they’re doing. Fourth week on maneuvers, I had a guy who didn’t tell me he’d cut his foot open on a loose nail going to the latrine in the middle of the night, and I ended up having to carry him three miles back to the infirmary after he finally fainted.”

“No one’s asking you to carry me.”

“And no one’s asking you to get yourself killed.”

“No one asked my dad, either.”

Bucky sat back and rubbed his forehead, “Jesus.”

Steve smirked, “Him either.”

Bucky laughed in spite of himself, shook his head, then got up and walked out, too disturbed by what Steve seemed to be saying to answer.

Steve ran after him “Buck!”

He hit the bricks and turned down the street towards his parents’ place, “What am I even supposed to say to that?”

Steve caught up, “Say you understand. Because you do. I know you do.”

He shook his head, “You’re out of your fucking mind.”

“Why, because I believe in something and I wanna do my part, same as you?”

“If you have to lie to do it, how is it your part?”

“If I have to give up everything I believe and sit at home, how is that my part either?”

“You don’t have to sit at home! You have talent, you could go back to art school! If you start putting your patriotism on canvas, you could recruit a hundred guys!”

“Yeah, to go die in my place. No thanks.”

“So that’s your place, huh? You got that all figured out? You think your mom would think that’s such a great plan for you? You think she ever thanked your dad for dying?”

Steve stopped and Bucky turned around, adding a hash mark to his mental tally of kicks he owed himself. It surprised him that Steve didn’t even look angry. He was standing under a streetlight, shoulders back and serious as polio, “You wanna know? What my mom told me about my dad?”

Bucky shrugged. He didn’t trust his mouth.

“He came to America at age ten, because his step-father was a dangerous man. That’s all he ever said about it. But whatever it was that had happened, mom said he was the gentlest man she’d ever met. He’d never raise his voice, let alone his hand, in anger. She said I must have gotten my temper all from her,” he smiled at his shoes, “She said his heart would break for a sparrow on a cold day, and he was the last man on earth who would ever go to war.”

“So they drafted him?”

Steve shook his head, the light over him seeming brighter as the sky deepened from last-light to true dark, “He enlisted.”

“Why?”

“Because H.G. Wells had called it a ‘war to end war’. Seemed to him like a good thing to fight for. Once he realized that, he couldn’t sit home.”

“Yeah, but look around. Wells wrote fiction. And your dad died.”

Steve shook his head vigorously, “He wasn’t wrong. Every war is a war for peace. We just keep losing it, in the long run. We eventually stop shooting each other but it’s not peace, it’s just quiet. There’s no peace for the weak that depend on the whims of the strong for survival. There’s no freedom in keeping a gun to everyone’s head or a foot on anyone’s neck to maintain the silence. That’s a holding action, one that can’t hold forever. And shouldn't.”

“Don’t make this out to be about back-alley bullies and kid stuff! It's not a game!”

“I know war isn’t a game, better than you. What you don’t get is that it isn’t a choice either. Not for anyone who understands what’s really at stake. That we’re at war again means that we’re already losing the real fight. I really do believe we can come back from the edge. We have to. But once the strong think it’s over, there’s gonna be a whole lot more widows, and a whole lot more fatherless kids wondering what it was all for, and a whole lot of bullies slinking back into the shadows until the so-called peace can die down and they can get a little of their own back on the world.”

“So what in the hell do you think will help that in you getting yourself killed?”

“It’s not about getting myself killed. It’s about being able to live with myself. I can’t just leave the fighting up to the strong, Buck. What would be the point of becoming the best artist in the world if I can’t tell people that the real work begins after the war? I can't say anything about it if I’m just some shrimp who has never seen the real work _of_ war.”

“You’ve seen it, though, Steve. You’ve lived it. Your mom’s buried next to him.”

“Yeah. And I can’t let that be for nothing again.” Steve’s impassioned rapture seemed to abandon him and he turned to lean on the lamppost.

Bucky went to him, “Steve, you’re crazy. You’ve got nothing to prove.”

“Thanks Buck. But the fact that even you don’t understand means that I definitely do.”

“Steve-”

Steve looked up at him, a little calmer, “Listen, I won’t try to enlist again, ok? I’ll appeal my status. I’ll apply for a waiver again. I’ll make myself annoying enough that they’ll be happy to get rid of me. No more felonies. I promise.”

Bucky put a cajoling arm around his neck and pried him away from the light post and on down the road, “Don’t promise. I might need you to come save me, then where would I be?”

Steve laughed, “Pretty doomed.”   
  
Bucky nodded, “Exactly. And hey, if the army can’t figure out what to do with you, maybe the red cross can. Or if worse comes to worse, the Navy.”

Steve gave his little laugh of surrender, letting Bucky win, “Hey, for a terrible idea that’s not half bad.”

They went along quietly, back towards home, and Bucky felt time slipping back towards the beginning, time changing with place. Back before basic, before the draft, before enlisting before he could be drafted, back to waiting, pacing Brooklyn like a cat in a sack. His duffle vanished, and early spring turned back several pages to early fall.

Steve took a deep breath, “I’m not asking to be extraordinary, I just hate feeling useless.”

“Well too bad. You are extraordinary. Deal with it.”

“Ha ha.” He stuck his hands down in his pockets but his smile warmed a little. “I’d settle for being normal.”

Bucky scoffed, “Come on, no you wouldn’t.”

“Sure I would.”

“You wanna be some factory schlub in the third floor of a house he doesn’t own, with a third kid on the way and a liquor habit? Coz that’s gonna be normal for the guys we graduated with.”

“You know I don’t mean that.”

“Yeah. But what you do mean is worse. At least you’ve got options. You should go back to art school.”

“I tried that.”

“Yeah, once. So Auburndale wasn’t for you. That doesn’t mean anything. There are other schools.”

“It wasn’t ‘not for me’ Buck. I failed out. They let me in for a couple semesters, I tried my best, and I failed out.”

“On a technicality. You just got sick. That’s not the same as if you just weren’t any good.”

“Kinda feels like it from over here.”

They were quiet for a while, then Bucky shrugged, not really willing to drop the subject but also hoping to change it, “People say they want to be normal, but what they really mean is they want to feel like they belong and everyone likes them. Trust me, pal, that’s not what normal gets you.”

Steve scoffed, “What would you even know about being normal?”

It wasn’t said like it was meant to hurt. It shouldn’t have hurt. He waited it out.

Steve’s tone was softened by the silence, “Anyway everyone does like you. It’s actually kind of scary.”

“Not everyone.”

“Oh come on.” Steve rolled his eyes enormously and laughed.

“What?”

“One girl in the five boroughs treats you like you’re not god’s gift to women, and you’re the hunchback of Notre Dame forever.”

“I wasn’t even thinking of her. Anyway there’s been more than one.”

“And yet you know exactly who I mean. Ok fine. But except for one girl in every million, and every bully south of Broadway, I can’t think of a single person who doesn’t like you.”

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t really want to talk about it.

Steve prodded, “I mean, can you?”

“I don’t, for one.”

“Ah Buck, come on.”

“Well what do I got to offer, anyway, that you gotta act like I’m special? I mean I know how to sweep a floor. I know how to take a punch. Who does that make proud? Not my dad. Not me, if I’m honest.”

Steve didn’t offer an answer to that, and Bucky relented a little, “I don’t know. I guess I thought there was gonna be something I would know by now, but I’m just frozen in place and waiting for someone to tell me what to do. Something that doesn’t involve working a factory job and settling into a bad landlord and a liquor habit. After two years of nothing shaking loose, I’m starting to wonder if I’m ever going to change.”

“Buck, you don’t have to change. I mean, besides feeling like you should feel different, what do you feel that’s so bad?”

The word _latent_ tickled at the base of his throat like bronchitis, tempting him to cough it up. Like a predator crouched, like a childhood disease that had lingered and lingered and stunted his growth. It checked its pocket watch and tapped its foot like a conductor ready to announce the last stop of the line before the ride ended and everyone had to go their separate ways as strangers, lest the car go careening off the tracks. He almost said it.

_What do you feel that’s so bad?_

He just shrugged, “Hungry. Come on. Meatloaf night.”

“Nah, I got some stuff in the ice box that’s gonna go bad if I don’t get to it.”

“Tomorrow then. You can’t be a stranger. My folks miss their favorite son.” He aimed a punch at Steve’s shoulder.

Steve put up his fists like a shield and turned into it, blocking, grinning. He’d never have power, but he had great instincts. He opened his hands and clapped Buck on the shoulder, “You ok, pal?”

Bucky smiled. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just been a long week of feeling like nothing is happening. We should go out this Saturday. Meet some girls. My treat.”

Steve frowned, “I thought you were trying to save up.”

“I am, but it’s no good if I go crazy before I can even apply. How’s your scholarship application coming?” he asked too-pointedly.

Steve grimaced and looked away, point taken.

They thought they’d known how to get to college: just catch the two-train at Borough Hall, take it all the way down to the end of the line in Flatbush. Reality had proved a lot more complicated. They hadn’t really talked about it since graduation. Since the funeral.

It just seemed so pointless. Steve’s transcripts were a mess of absences even before Auburndale, and there wasn’t any money left if he couldn’t get a scholarship. April and June had come and gone, and neither of them had even applied to take the new SAT.

Bucky sighed. He hadn’t meant to start an argument, especially such an unfair one. “Look, we’ll figure out something to do. I just think we gotta get out, you know?” He meant Saturday. He was pretty sure he meant Saturday.

Steve nodded, “Yeah, it would be good to get out, do something for a change.”

He goes, and Bucky turns away. He can’t watch him go, or it feels like falling, and whenever he falls he wakes up screaming.


End file.
